When you sit down at a table with Nick Kroll, Jenny Slate, Brett Gelman and Lauren Weedman

In “Joshy,” the title character (Thomas Middleditch of “Silicon Valley,” a former Chicagoan during his time at Second City and iO) attempts to cope with the loss of his fiancée by taking what would have been his bachelor party weekend to just hang with his friends Eric (Nick Kroll), Ari (Adam Pally) and Adam (Alex Ross Perry). It winds up including a lot more people, though, including Eric’s friend Greg (suburban Highland Park native Brett Gelman), Jodi (Jenny Slate), a woman Ari befriends at a bar, and Isadora (Lauren Weedman), an escort who comes to the house where the guys are staying.

The funny, thoughtful quartet of Kroll, Slate, Gelman and Weedman talked with RedEye at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival about friendship, bachelor parties and if, cliché or not, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

The movie made me think about how friendships change over time and how sometimes people make friends when they’re kids or in college and not necessarily based on heavy things the characters go through in “Joshy.” What have you learned about that?

Brett Gelman: I think one of the big things for me is that I have been able to discern in an easier way what types of friends different people are. That not every friend is a friend that can be there for you or that you can be there for through their emotional life. And that’s fine. Some friends are just meant—

Lauren Weedman: To be shallow assholes.

BG: “I hang out with you, and I have fun with you.” And not to resent that. Yeah, deeper things, heavier things happen to you as you get older, and makes you more open.

Nick Kroll: I think one of the cool things about the movie, and I think is based in real life, is what’s weird about these kinds of weekends is you have people who are old, old friends, people you live next to, people you work with, and they all fill different places in your life at different points in your life. And then you bring them all together and it’s this weird thing. In the case of Thomas’ character Joshy, we all have our own individual relationship with him and feel some ownership over him and as [writer-director Jeff Baena] said are projecting our own lives onto him. Think about friends like [Adam Pally’s character] in the movie, who's been friends with him forever. They're witnesses to your whole life, and then there are people like [Jenny Slate’s character] who come in and become a major part of that weekend. Who are just there for that one weekend. Or [Lauren Weedman’s character] comes in and has a brief explosion in someone’s life and then is gone.

Jenny Slate: I think that one thing that I think about a lot is you shouldn’t rob people of the chance to share what they’re going through just because it makes you uncomfortable to ask. There should be one chance of saying, “Hey,” like to Thomas’ character, “You went through this thing; do you want to talk about it?” And if they say no they say no, but fearing that someone will be uncomfortable and then not addressing it robs them of the ability sometimes to realize that they can process those feelings in a new way. I think I’ve developed an ask-once rule and at least give the person the chance to say, “That doesn’t make me feel comfortable.” And that’s something that’s kind of missing in this weekend, and Joe Swanberg’s character brings it up”: “Why aren’t we talking about this?” Because no one really knows how to handle it. I think the other thing is just because people have boundaries doesn’t mean that they don’t want to be very intimate with you. All these men have different boundaries and they end up being very intimate. They have sex with each other. It’s not in the movie. Yeah, it’s intercourse.

NK: Full pen.

JS: All their pens in Nick’s body.

That was the only footage cut from the movie.

BG: It wasn’t that we were worried for the footage to get out there.

NK: We’re very proud of it.

JS: It’s just that there’s no sound.

BG: It was very special to me and to a lot of us, and we wanted to keep it for ourselves. So we have those videos to go back to.

Obviously this statement is such a cliché, but do you think there’s any truth to “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”? Or is that just what people to say to try to feel better in a tough situation?

JS: Both. Both things are true.

BG: Case by case basis.

JS: What doesn’t kill you probably does make you stronger, but it also probably makes you wary and confused. But all those things lead to growth, and also sometimes we tell each other and tell ourselves things to just make it through the day, and that’s fine too.

BG: Yeah, what doesn’t kill you, if you use it to make yourself stronger, then you will get stronger. But if you let it beat you down, then you will be weaker.

NK: But the song “Stronger” will kill me.

BG: Linda Lavin?

LW: Are you going through something, is that why you asked? [Laughs.]

I try to bring a flow to conversations, so now I can bring up the hard stuff, yes.

NK: Good.

Do you think it’s possible to do a movie like this well if the cast doesn’t already have a lot of camaraderie? What’s something that came out of that?

BG: I think we did have a lot of existing camaraderie. A lot of us have known each other a very long time, and the ones who didn’t inserted themselves in an immediate way--very clear personalities that you connect with immediately. I think that it is possible; that’s an actor’s job. We’ve all played really good friends of people in things that we were not friends with before it happened.

NK: I think it’s more a movie like this is hard to do less if people don’t know each other and more if they don’t have the background in improvisation or just the ability to be incredibly open. I think having a group of people who have the experiences, who have a history of knowing how to improvise and share is super important, even more so, but I do think the fact that we all knew each other definitely informed the intimacy of the movie.

JS: Yeah, it’s all about respect also. If you cast a bunch of assholes who don’t want to listen and all wanted to be the star, then the movie’s going to be really bad.

NK: Anyway. One other thing that I wanted to—

JS: Anyhow.

To what extent do you enjoy the fact that if people just look at the synopsis and the cast they might expect a different movie, but then they come in and see you take them to emotional places they might not expect?

BG: Love it, love it, love it. I think that’s great.

NK: I would still think that even if you’re surprised that there’s emotional stuff, [if] people are looking for comedy you’re still getting as many laughs as you would get in a comedy.

JS: Yeah, it’s really funny.

NK: It also just has another level to it that makes it an even more enjoyable experience to watch.

BG: Yeah, I felt too that the laughs from this were coming out of a need to laugh. Just like the characters had a need to laugh.

NK: In life though, I just want to say, I have a need for speed.

LW: [Laughs] Dammit. I laughed at another dumb thing. What a fucking asshole.

JS: It’s unbelievable. I feel like it’s been a decade of him saying the dumbest shit, and I laugh so hard every time. It sometimes doesn’t make sense at all, it’s garbage, and I laugh every time because he’s so confident with it.

LW: Yeah, exactly. I laughed at the “Who’s the Boss?” joke and I felt like an asshole for a half an hour a shame spiral from laughing. It’s like, “Why did I laugh at that?”

NK: Honestly just to be in the Acura room is just in itself a joy.

BG: Acura: My third favorite car.

Certainly this is not the case all the time, but in my experience with my group of friends it’s been the case where guys often have bachelor parties and go to a different city and blow it out for a whole weekend, and the women sometimes do it one night in town and not as extravagantly. Has that been your experience, and why do you think that’s sometimes the case?

JS: I don’t know. None of my friends have had bachelor parties. And I think they’re like a disgusting representation of a patriarchy that should die. Yeah, that’s how I feel about them. I think they’re an excuse for men to misbehave and not take responsibility. I think it’s gross. I don’t know. I don’t like them. [Laughs.]

BG: I’ve been to them. I’ve never gone to a bachelor party, where I didn’t, no matter how much I loved the people there, hate them so much for their disgusting behavior. I don’t need to be around just guys. Ever. I don’t enjoy that. I like women around. I like female energy. I find it very important. I think that women offer something very invaluable that cannot be replaced by all men, and I think it’s offensive. I think the whole thing that’s based on, “Oh, we got the women out of the way, now we can be free!” You are fucked up if you think that.

JS: Yeah, it’s disgusting. [Laughs.]

BG: And you shouldn’t think of your bachelor party as the greatest night of your life because if that’s the case you are going to have a terrible life.

LW: If I see a bachelor or bachelorette party coming towards me, I’m like, “Oh, fuck.” I get worried. I’m not a big fan.

BG: Nick can’t enough. Bachelor party once a month at least.

NK: I love ‘em. I invite myself to random bachelor parties. I feel like myself.